The River Flows In You
by Zakhariahz
Summary: AH. Edward, 13, is the last of Edward and Elizabeth's four kids. born a cripple and a mute, abused by his siblings and living in the middle of a domestic war between his parents, he looks to music. summry sux. plz R&R!
1. waking up

The River Flows In You

By Zakhariahz

"Hey, retard, get up!" Elizabeth shouted to the lump under the thick quilt before punching it. It yelped hoarsely, muffled, in pain. "Good. Now get up!"

A full head of coppery-bronzish-reddish-brownish-strange-coloured-ish hair emerged from beneath the mass of cloth as she stomped from the room. For an eighteen year old _girl _she sure knew how to throw a punch and where to throw a punch. The owner of the hair turned his face towards the door and now instead of his oldest sister's receding back, he saw his older brother, Riley, 17, standing in the doorway.

"Oh, god, imagining having to see that fucking ugly face so early in the morning," he snarled, wrinkling his nose in absolute disgust at the face of his brother, paying particular attention to the full cleft on the right side of the smaller boy's lip, "get up, shitface, or you'll miss breakfast. They already say we don't feed you. Not our fault you're so damn skinny."

Riley left without waiting for a reply that never would have come anyway. Just as the boy was pushing down the covers slowly, trying his utmost best not to cry, like he did every morning, something very solid collided with the back of his head. He yelped again hoarser than the first and another solid projectile much like the first hit slightly below the first. He did not make a sound this time, biting his good lip with great force. His older sister Caroline, 16, snatched her chunky heeled sandals from the pillow behind him with a scornful glare.

"Mum's already in a bad mood so get your ass downstairs, Quasimodo."

The tears prickled the corner of his eyes as he struggled out of the bed as quickly as he could, falling out of the bed and landing hard on his malformed right leg. Tears fell from his eyes as he sobbed in broken gasps, clutching the gimpy limb to his chest. His other hand felt around for his crutches, needing to pull himself up into a sitting position and extend the leg but his crutches were not in reach and the searing pain refused to ease up. He tried calling out for help but as usual, his deformed voice box failed. His hand shot out again in a desperate quest for those damn crutches and swatted the base of them which resulted in them falling down on him, whacking him on the back of his head.

"Edward?" his mother called, "you have to get up now. Edward, where are you?"

Edward lifted his arm into the air, hoping to God that she would see it. Thankfully, she did. She shouted out and rushed to his side, heaving him up and unto the bed.

"Edward?" she shrieked frantically, "Baby, are you alright? Please, God, please, tell me you're alright!"

_I want to, mummy, I really want to._

Edward nodded slowly, hicupping on a few sobs. Elizabeth let out a cry of relief and grabbed him into a hug, squeezing the growing bump on the back of his head, wetting her hand on sticky blood. She knew well enough by now that this was the work of her other children. They taunted and teased, jeered and abused. . .Why did they hate him so much? She held the scrawny boy to her breasts, marvelling at his stoicism as he held in all of his sobs and tears, a feat she herself could not accomplish as saline dripped onto his rumpled bronze hair. Another day had begun and she could not help but cry once more for her youngling, wondering why he would not cry for himself.

**A/N:- i usually hate that people leave these thingies but i find myself leaving one now. this is an idea that's been in my mind for a while and i think that THE RIVER FLOWS IN YOU by YIRUMA is beautiful and should've in fact been Bella's lullaby. ok, here goes chapter two. . .**


	2. please don't cry

Elizabeth helped Edward to bathe and get dressed before they went down for breakfast, knowing that the other children would be gone by the time they were finished. As Edward munched on an omlette he studied his father sitting in the chair in front of him, absent-mindedly eating buttered toast as he read the paper in his lap.

_I look like daddy but I have hair and eyes like mummy._

Wide green eyes took in each needle straight sandy brown strand of hair and the silver ones in between then carefully traced the pair of gentle lines above his father's brow, down to the dark blue almost black eyes under thin but distinct and highly arched eyebrows - Edward traced his smaller pair with an index finger, finding the sharp arch - and then gliding along the straight bridge of his father's nose in sync with his finger down his own nose. Edward touched the sharp point on his nose as he scrutinized the softer rounded tip of the man's opposite him. The thirteen year old boy pursed his deformed lips with a determination as he examined the older man's mouth amidst the fuzz of coarse stubble. Pink, pouty lips with the bottom lip sticking further out. . .He touched his bottom lip, his finger quaking in defeat as he parted the cleft gingerly.

_But daddy's not ugly like me. . ._

Edward Sr. looked up at last from the printed news, cocking his eyebrows in surprise to find his son seated in front of him. The man sighed in resignation. Edward Anthony should not have been able to make it to thirteen. He should have been dead but then again, he looked like it. Bleach white skin, black circles and bags around his eyes, impossibly thin. . .there was no colour on him. . .except for his hair and his eyes.

"Good morning, Edward," Mr. Masen said to his son, offering a warm smile, "Have you been there long?"

_Good morning, daddy, no I have not been here long. I will lie and say this because I don't want you and mummy to fight anymore. No more fighting. Please._

Edward shook his head with a small wave to Mr. Masen. He saw the doubt lurking in those deep dark blue eyes and knew that they would fight anyway. Elizabeth walked through the door at that moment, smiling at Edward, running her fingers through his curls, cautious of the bump.

"Did you not see it fit to tell me that my son was up, Elizabeth?" Edward Sr. spat coldly, bringing his fist down on the table with some force.

"No. He has been sitting there in front of you for over a half hour now, picking at that omlette. You should have noticed him the moment he sat down." Elizabeth was not watching him as she spoke, busying herself with other things. "Edward, sweetheart, please eat something. I'm carrying you to the doctor today."

Panic rose in the back of the boy's throat. Doctors meant bad news. He stood quickly, shaking and falling back into his seat, knocking over his crutches. Edward Sr. just sat and glowered at his wife who rushed over to pick up the hollow metal 'legs'.

"Why are you carrying him to the doctor? He seems fine."

"_Seems_ not _is_. He has a nasty bruise on the back of his head and he fell on his leg this morning. I want to make sure everything is alright with him. If it's not too much, and it usually is, talk to the others again, like you were suppose to before but didn't." Elizabeth looked at him finally, her fiery emerald irises burning a hole right through him, as she sat on the chair adjacent to Edward and began cutting up his omlette into smaller bits. "Edward, you have to eat, honey." Edward looked at her with large, doleful eyes and began roughly shoving the food into his mouth.

_I'll be good mummy. I'll be good so you won't have to look like you're going to cry. I won't be a reason for you to cry._

"Hey, champ, slow down! You'll choke!" Elizabeth smiled lovingly at him and he blushed a pale rose colour. "Chew before you swallow or I swear, you'll have a lump the shape of that piece in your throat."

"Stop filling his head with rubbish!" Edward Sr. snappped at her then at Edward. "If you don't chew your food you'll suffocate and die."

"And that's suppose to be better?!"

"I'm telling to boy the truth!"

"You're scaring him, you wretch son of a bitch!"

"Real life is scary!"

"His life is scary enough without his father making things worse for him. In case you haven't noticed our other children beat him senseless on a daily basis, they destroy his books, burn his music, put things in his food, ruin his clothes. They taunt him everyday and you do nothing. You watch them make a fool of him, ridicule him, day in and day out, and do nothing. You're a terrible father!"

"I'm teaching him how to fend for himself. He needs to learn to defend himself. You cant baby him all of his life. He's thirteen! A teenager! What about when he goes to high school? You won't be there or what about college? He has to learn to do things for himself. He has to learn to defend himself."

Elizabeth knew that she would not be there for her son and it burned her, badly. She would not be there to pick him up when he fell or was pushed down, to comfort him when people laughed at him or made his life miserable and it hurt to know.

'I know that but I will at least like to protect him in his own home. Edward, come on."

_I'm coming, mummy. Please, please, please, don't cry. . ._


	3. getting better?

The hands that probed the sensitive spot at the back of his head did not bother to be gentle but the coolness of the thick fingers, smooth with calluses, did provide a comfort. Edward's fists were clamped tightly in his lap, crescent shape marks forming on his palms from his fingernails biting into the soft flesh. This sucked.

"Mrs. Masen, Edward is very lucky he did not have a concussion and also, fortunately enough, he does not need stitches but I advise you keep him home for a few days. He may get some dizzy spells and worse case senario, he blacks out."

_I'll try my hardest not to. . .I'll stay strong and I'll be good. Mummy has enough to deal with._

"Now, that leg. . .Tell me about it, ma'am."

Edward listened to his mother describe the way she had found him o the floor this morning, the angle of his leg, and he watched the doctor look at his mother inappropriately, looking between his mother's ignorance to it and the glazed over, darken eyes of the man. The doctor looked very different from his father. His features were rougher somehow, heavier and far less attractive. His hairline had receded a considerable amount and the lines in his face were permanent, his chin and cheeks stained grey from years of shaving.

_You disgust me, doctor, and you're nothing like my father._

"Ok, Edward, I'm going to need you to take off your pants."

The little boy shook his head vehemently, making small, choking cries at the back of his throat. He grasped his mother's hand, tugging, pleading to keep his clothes on.

"Honey, you have to."

He looked into her eyes, begging and eventually seeing that there was no way out, he fumbled with the button and zipper, forcing the garment off.

_I feel vulnerable. Mummy, why are you letting this happen to me?_

"This might hurt a bit, son."

_Don't call me 'son'. I am _not_ your son._

The man inspected the warped limb, probing the lines where the muscles twisted in the wrong direction, gripping the engorged joint and crushing his thumb into the painful sink at his ankle. Elizabeth marveled once more at the poker face Edward adopted, wincing only in the slightest when the horrid gorilla dug his thumb into the dent.

"There's nothing I can do for his leg. He just has to keep it iced and elevated and be careful. If he continues falling on it and damaging it, he could break it and that would be very problematic."

"Alright, doctor, thank you."

_It's not always my fault. . ._

"Before you leave, I would like to give the boy a general check up. See if there's anything extra he could do make it more comfortable for him."

"Ok."

Edward struggled back into his pants and did as the doctor told him, not really minding what was going on around him.

"Height, 5' 7""

"Weight, 95lbs" The man checked the other recordings he had made. "Edward is very much under-weight and I have to put him on a strict diet to build up some muscle and fat as well as an exercise regiment. He could collapse anytime at this rate."

_Not good._

"Edward?"

_Yes, Mummy? _He smiled up at her instead and his face split into a huge grin when he saw her return smile. _You're so pretty. Why do people always make you cry? _"Come on, sweetie. Thank you, doctor, enjoy the rest of your day."

The doctor gave Edward a lot of things to think about as they drove home but there seemed to be nothing he could do about any of them, especially his weight. The others put unmentionables in his food and exercise? He could hardly make it down the stairs properly.

"We're going to do everything that creep told us ok, Edward," Elizabeth said, drawing him out of his thoughts, "everything and I'm going to make sure the others don't interfere."

_Aye-aye, captain! I want to get better._

"First we have to go to the grocery store to get some of these things." She scanned the high-carb, high-protein diet sheet, scrutinizing the meal plan for week one of the four week trial.

**AN:- I'm no medical expert but I have a vague idea of what the doctors give people who are under-weight. And as for the disfigured limb. . .it's all in my imagination. ****J. so now onto chapter four. Sorry the chapters are so short. Pardon my grammar and spelling if anything seems awry. Thank you to the one person who put me on story alert! It feels awesome to know that someone has read my story.**


	4. the whole picture

They pulled into a damn-near-impossible parking spot in the grocery's lot and neither of them moved. Elizabeth's heart was beating hard in her chest, hammering heavily against her rib cage forcefully, she looked over to the passenger seat where Edward had dozed off. He made strangled groans and moans at the back of his throat as he dreamt, whimpering here and there, and she just watched him for a few minutes.

_Mummy, please don't cry, I'll get better, don't cry. I'll die Mummy. I'll die! I'll die if you don't stop crying. . .Daddy, please stop making Mummy cry. I'll be good. I'll get better, just stop it._

Edward's eyes fluttered open to be greeted by his mother's eyes, glassy and bloodshot, staring warmly into him. Panicked at the unshed tears, he scrambled up into a sitting position and began wiping at her eyes with clumsy, shaking fingers, grunting with adamance, trying to tell her to stop.

"Edward! Hey, you! You'll put my eye out!" she was laughing but she didn't swat his hands away. "Come on, kiddo, let's go get you some food."

_Really? I get to come inside? I don't have to stay in the car? _His eyes grew large and brightened at the idea. He was actually getting to go inside of the grocery store. The last time he had been inside of the store he had been five and not as awkwardly long to fit in his father's long, strong arms. The crutches made him much slower than his family and no one had wanted to deal with having to stall their business for him or to worry about him getting injured.

"You coming, sweetie?" Elizabeth was already out of the car, holding his door open so he could hop out. Eagerly, he unfolded himself from the confines of the car and leaned against the frame, steadying his crutches on the wet pitch.

"Leave one in the car." _Excuse me? Mummy, then I won't be able to walk. _"You can lean on me and we'll be able to move a little faster, okay." _Alright. _Edward nodded and they began their hobble to the automatic glass doors. Elizabeth decided to hire the teenage boy who was working part time at the grocery and who was also loitering around the entrance, puffing on a cigarette - he must've been around eighteen - to follow them around with a cart as they got their things.

The boy looked Elizabeth over with disrespectful eyes as she approached him then, out of is lazy eye, he saw the tall, skeletal figure who leaned against her. He focused on Edward's face, confirming the 'family' theory that was running through his mind and averting his eyes in pure scorn at the sight of Edward's mouth.

"Hello, good afternoon, son. Would you like to earn a twenty?" Elizabeth offered a friendly but plutonic smile to the boy who took it the wrong way and took a long drag of the fag before exhaling deeply in Edward's direction, the smoke dissolving into nothingness before it reached the younger boy but he caught the scent anyway. Edward allowed a small cough to clear his now itching throat.

_Do _not_ look at my mother that way._

"Name's Chase. What do you have in mind, sweetheart?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, flicking the butt onto the hard top and crushing it under the heel of his scuffed up Vans.

"I am most certainly not you sweetheart and I'll give you twenty if you accompany me and my son here around the grocery with a cart." Elizabeth's smile did not falter but it was not so much as friendly as it was threatening but Chase was not put off.

_Wow. Go, Mummy. _

Edward was not a violent child but when it came to his mother there was nothing he would not - or would not attempt - to do. At that moment he wanted to rip that kid's arm off and beat some manners into him with it. Chase leered at his mother for a few moments before agreeing and grabbing a cart. Their task was not a challenging one. The grocery was well stocked and within a half hour, they had a half-filled cart.

"Okay, Edward, we're almost finished but I think we should stop for a while. You're flushed." True enough, Edward's cheeks were bright pink and he had a film of perspiration over his face and down the back of his neck but he shook his head as feverishly as he could manage in his drained state. "Yes. We're stopping and that's final." Edward hung his head and gasped mutely, his chest heaving, arm shaking from trying to hold most of his weight, but he knew it was hopeless to argue with his mother when she was set on something and the last thing he ever wanted to do was make his mother upset but it always ended up being the first thing he did.

Elizabeth helped him sit down on a small stack of crates marked 'Pears' to catch his breath. In those few minutes where he sat panting lightly, he looked at his mother, like _really_ looked at her for the first time in a long time, not in small pieces - snippets - to be pondered separately. No, he looked at her as a whole, welding the details together to see his mother properly and through the eyes of an older boy - maybe not that much older but older than his childish musings but still young enough to see her with a romanticist's view. She was the prettiest woman he had ever seen.

Her thick auburn curls - so much like his own but so much more beautiful - were pulled into a loose plait that hung almost to her waist, stray and stubborn strands standing apart from the partially tamed lot, catching on her ears and long, elegant neck, the corner of her well-proportioned mouth, the fluorescent lights bringing out all the different shades of brown and red in each strand. She had a standard four-finger forehead that was smooth no matter how many times her brow had been creased, her thin but not as highly arched as his father's eyebrows were the exact same colour as her hair curved tenderly over her almond-shaped eyes which went up subtly at the corners.

His mother's eyes always caught him off-guard. Her irises were a startlingly lovely collection of greens. The entire iris was a bright green, fringed with a darker almost bluish green which also ringed the border of her pupil. The iris was flecked with every shade of green between the contrasting pair; olives and emeralds, leafy and deep, velvety and dull, every kind but the most startlingly lovely thing about her eyes to him was the thin ring of illuminated gold that cut the iris into two rings of even thickness. Edward had eyes like his mother but not her eyes. His eyes did not have all of her variation and life, all of it's breathtaking splendor. No, his irises were a deep velvety green at the fringes and faded into a gleaming light emerald at the pupil.

Elizabeth blinked and her thick fringe of black eyelashes threw faint, almost invisible shadows across the delicate curve of her cheekbones. She rubbed a tenacious strand from her smooth but full cheek, brushing down her very feminine jaw line and down to her chin where her heart-shaped face pointed, finger trailing to touch the silver leaf pendant a little way beneath the hollow of her throat. Elizabeth was fairly tall for a woman, standing about an inch over Edward, and slender with supple curves. After four children, at thirty-eight, her stomach had stretched and her stomach was always a small bump that never got flat anymore. Her long, milky legs was always clean and her dainty feet always encased in soft soled but stylish shoes. Edward's eyes held onto the not-so-thin anklet she wore. It was a fragile looking thing even with it's bulk, made of black and white coral with a single heart-shaped, crystal pendant dangling directly under her ankle.

_No matter what daddy tells her, she's never taken it off. . ._

"You ready to continue, honey? We could just go ring up what we already have and come back another time." Edward shook his head with conviction and it wasn't that much of an effort anymore but it still took some from him. "Alright, let's continue." The corners of her pink, cherubic mouth pulled themselves up into a crooked smile.

_I was wrong. I don't have Mummy hair or her eyes. Hers are so indescribable and mine cannot compare but I do have Mummy's smile._

He rose, tucking the crutch securely under his sore arm and leaning infinitesimally into Elizabeth.

_Let's go._

"Hey, you, creepy kid-"

"Chase."

"Yeah, Chase, come on."

Edward was grinning from ear-to-ear as they walked wobbly away from the crates but he looked over his shoulder and committed the spot to memory.

_Sometimes special things happen in non-special places. . ._


	5. things are looking up?

"Edward!" _Yes, Mummy? _"Your dinner's done, come and eat something!" Edward stood and began hopping on his good leg towards the dinning room where he left his crutches. He noticed for the first time that Elizabeth had put his notebook on the table, tentatively, he opened it and took up the lead pencil set next to it

_We never talk at dinner. . . _He scribbled on the first line on the page then proceeded to shovel some form of food into his stomach. It was warm and delicious. He couldn't remember the last time he had something that wasn't bread or spoilt before this morning. It was. . .pasta! Spaghetti topped up with extra meat sauce and a bit of gooey melted cheese on top.

The notebook slapped against the smooth, cheery finish of the table as his mother took her seat with a salad next to him. _We're going to put some fat on you before we look at any muscle building._

_Can I see a physical therapist? _Elizabeth raised a shaped eyebrow at him curiously before writing again.

_Physical therapist? Where'd you get that idea?_

_Daddy talked to me about it once. He said that when I got older I would have to go to one._

_Well, your father was right but I want to talk to your doctor first._

_I don't like him. . ._

_Me neither, baby, me neither._

Edward stared at her eating her lettuce and other green things, reevaluating the words in his head over and over again for a few minutes, trying to structure her reactions. _I want to get better._

"I know you do and you are going to get better." She took his free hand between her both palms, a small, sad smile tugging at her lips as she reminisced on the day when her hand completely engulfed his instead of touching her fingertips with is own. "You're growing up so fast, kiddo."

_I'll always be you're little boy._

"Yes," she said confidently, squaring her shoulders, "you always will be."

"Mum! We're home!" Lizzy called from the living room, Caroline giggling along with her friend at Gavin, Riley's friend, who had hitched a ride with them that afternoon. She piled her long sandy hair into a high ponytail before calling out again. "Mum?"

"I'm in the kitchen!" Lizzy ran off into the kitchen with a scowl and Gavin threw himself down on the big suede sofa as Riley browsed the cabinet for Halo for his 360. Caroline bounded up the stairs to change out of her sneakers, taking her friend with her.

"Hey, mum," Lizzy said breezily, pecking her mother's cheek from across the table, blatantly ignoring her younger sibling until he nudged a scrap of paper in her direction.

" 'your blue eyes, frozen oceans, cold as your heart, will they ever melt and wash away your hate?'" The young woman's eyes blazed at these words. "You think you're so smart? No one will care with a face like that. Yes, they will melt and drown your childish wishes in cold reality. Can you swim?" With that, Miss I-get-A-pluses-in-Literature-and-English stalked out of the kitchen before her mother could scold her.

_I didn't mean it as an insult. . ._

_I know sweetheart._

"Come on, finish up your lunch and then we're going to get a movie."

"Did I hear someone say movie?" Riley sauntered into the kitchen next, flipping his floppy but surprisingly lustrous brown-with-the-faintest-tint-of-red hair in vain as it fell back into his eyes. He had that ridiculously goofy grin on his boyishly handsome face, his deep blue eyes with tiny green dots grinning right along with his mouth. _He looks exactly like Daddy, _Edward thought, looking at Riley from beneath his so he wouldn't get caught. "Oh, Mum! This is Gavin. He came over to play Halo with me so we'll be up in my room."

"Yeah, Edward and I are heading out to go get a couple of DVDs, we're going to have a movie night if you want to join us, want anything?"

"Could you return him while you're out?" Gavin snorted with laughter at the crack.

"Riley, no Halo for a week, Gavin, go home."

"What!" Both boys yelled in indignance, glowering at Edward. The younger boy knew there was going to be Hell to pay for it. They began their protests, grumbling and swearing, grunting and hollering but Elizabeth sat calmly as they ranted. Edward was well aware that this was not going to help the situation, in fact, they were digging themselves down faster.

"Well, Riley, now that you're done." When both boys were quiet but breathing hard with flaring nostrils. "It can definitely be said now that you inherited your father's alarming good-looks but not his brains. No Halo and no Gavin and that's final. Gavin, I'll walk you out."

_Things are actually looking up for me. . .and all because of my mum._

"Mum!" Caroline shrieked from atop the staircase and the three boys jumped, wide-eyed at the frequency and decibel level of the noise. "No!"

Elizabeth smirked and looked teasingly at the pair of boys. "I don't know who's more upset that you're leaving, Gavin. Riley or my daughter."

Edward grunted a small laugh, unheard by the masses but his amusement could be felt by all. Riley's eyes burned a hole right through him with a look that said 'You're mine, bitch.'

**AN:- another short chapter. I would like to especially thank Sarah and Sylvie who gave me the most awesometastically kewl reviews and I send my love to the others who also reviewed and added me to their alerts or favourites. I'm scrapping trying to predict when I'm updating so it'll come anytime.**

**Love, Zakh.**


	6. revenge on the broken

Edward had been extra careful in avoiding his siblings ever since Gavin got tossed out last week but he knew they were planning something. His parents had been fighting even more seeing as Riley told their father about his mother throwing out his guest. Everything was getting worse for them. Once or twice he heard his mother say the word 'divorce' and once or twice he heard the clapping sound of Edward's large, callous hand against Elizabeth's smooth cheek.

This particular morning when he got up, something felt even more off-whack than usual. Both his parents were out. He remembered his mother saying she was going to see her sister and his father mumbling something about going into the office early. Edward was careful as he shifted himself into a sitting position between the fresh sheet and flinched as he moved. . .both of his legs???

Frantically he threw the sheets back, exposing his long pale legs. Edward gasped. Long, shallow lacerations striped his legs from the tips of his toes to the bottom of his shorts. They oozed blood and pus slightly, stinging when a light breeze tickled it. On his arms were the same cuts. His breath was coming and going quickly, sawing in and out of his lungs raggedly. Tremors wracked his body, chattering his teeth and tears were streaming down onto his face; he was panicking, hyperventilating. Edward looked around his room. It was trashed. All of his music was torn up and in a pile in one corner, his clothing were strewn everywhere and his school books laid in a charred heap under his desk. Sniffling, he turned to look at his crutches which were dismantled and twisted into pretzel like formations. Edward bawled at that point, curling up into a ball and making some of the scrapes bleed. He puked at that point, violently, bringing up all the contents of his stomach onto his forearms.

"Look he puked!"

"Better yet, he pissed himself!" Edward hadn't realized that part but he didn't move. He laid crying in his vomit and urine, leaking blood and pus into it as his sibling and someone else roared with laughter at his pitiful state.

_I don't know what to do. . .I'm so weak. . .I. . .I. . .I can't even stop crying. . .I feel so sick. . .Mum. . .Dad. . .help me please. . ._

"Hey, Riley, I gotta bounce. Thanks for the show," the stranger said, footsteps going out of the room, "Bye, Lizzy. See you around, Caroline." His voiced dropped to a low form of seduction on the last part. Caroline giggled profusely before crooning, "Of course, Gavin."

"Alright, girls, let's go. This room is starting to stink."

They left him as he continued to sob, vomiting again, only this time, he brought up mucus. Edward felt his bladder let go once more during his lament. He didn't know how long he lay there, crying an endless reservoir of saline until he began to smell sour in the disdainful concoction. He puked, too weak to lift his head, directly in front of him, the goo sliding back down to his face, going up into his nose as he inhaled shallowly. At random intervals, he brought up more, breathing in more and more of it until his lungs stung and his vision began to fog.

_Ouch. . .I'm slipping. . .I can't see. . .I can't breathe. . ._

Edward took one long breath before he blacked out. He swore he heard scuffling in his room.

**AN:- okay, I know after making you all wait so long for this chapter that it should be long but I now got a chance to write this…as in an hour ago…lol. Anyway, this is all I got right now. And this was Riley's revenge. Please don't hate me for it. **

**-Zakh.**


	7. growing into the man i need to be

His nostrils were on fire and every burning breath he took smelt rancid, like decaying meat. Edward could feel his chest heaving a little higher than average even though he could not see it. His esophagus and trachea felt sore and used, tingling irritatingly along with his legs, giving him the feeling that they were vibrating.

_Please, just let this pain stop._

"Edward, I'm so sorry, I should've gotten home sooner. I should've been there to stop this but I wasn't and you're paying for it. Edward, please, honey, if you can hear me open your eyes."

Edward shook his head slowly. _No. I can't. I won't. I don't want to see you cry._

"Edward! Oh thank God! Edward, sweetie, please open your eyes for me. I need you know that you're okay. Please."

"Edward, listen to your mother or I'll peel your eyelids from your eyeballs." Edward began to sniffle at his father's threat, knowing very well, that his father - from the tone of his voice - would in fact open his eyes forcefully.

"You're scaring him, Edward! How could you say something like that to our son? And especially at a time such as this! Have you no heart?"

"I'm fed up of you and your stupid questions and I shall tell my son what I damn well please. He's my son as well. I have that right as his father."

"No, you will not speak to my son in that manner. Ourchildren have hurt him and I want them gone. Out of the house in a weeks time. I want them sent to boarding school. You have let this get too far and I think it's time we took action."

"The others stay and I mean it, Elizabeth. I will not send our other children to boarding school because you are playing favourites. You've neglected the others and they're just trying to get their mother back."

"I've neglected the others? I have done no such thing! Maybe if they weren't so hellbent on killing him, I would have more time for them!"

_Stop…I'll open my eyes, just stop…_ Edward opened his eyes as wide as they would go, cringing as the cool hospital air met them in their bloodshot state. Making small grunting noises in the back of his throat to get his parents attention, he flailed his arms gingerly.

_Aw, dammit! Just look at me! My eyes are open, please, stop!_

It happened then. Edward's eyes grew large and a yelp of surprise suffocated him momentarily. Elizabeth's head snapped to the side the sound of the impact echoing in Edward's ears - in his mind - then the sound of barely restrained snuffles clouded his hearing. His father stood breathing heavily, enraged, trying to keep his temper in check before he made another rash move.

_He struck her…after everything he had taught us about respecting women and learning to be proper gentlemen, he struck mummy…_

"I'm calling Burns. I can't live like this anymore. I'm filing for a divorce. Burns'll call you to finalize the settlement but I definitely want the other children." With that Edward Sr left the room, fingers clasped on the bridge of his nose. Edward watched Elizabeth fall to the floor, cupping her cheek with one hand, the other fisting itself in the material of her blouse at her hip, breaking down. He saw his mother, an ever thriving rose amidst all of the bedlam and adversity, wither away and wilt down to barely nothing. She curled up into a feotal position, hugging her knees as tight as she could to her chest and cried her eyes out. Never before had he sounded so final about a divorce. She knew he was dead serious and was expecting the papers within the week but it still didn't stop her from weeping. Edward had been her first love, all through high school and college, her only love. Scared and very much unsure how to deal with a grieving woman, Edward peered tentatively over the bed rails, hands trembling, arms straining with the effort to hold his body up.

…_I wish I could hold you in my arm and tell you it's okay,_

_kiss those tears that stain your cheeks and make them away,_

_wipe your darkest, deepest fears into a long forgotten yesterday,_

_and be the person you always believed me to be…_

…_As you lay crying broken and beaten on the floor,_

_while his love diminishes, I love you even more,_

_when he throws down the keys and walks out your door,_

_I'll stay and try to be the person you always believed me to be…_

…_I wish I could hold you in my arm and tell you it's okay,_

_kiss those tears that stain your cheeks away,_

_wipe your darkest, deepest fears into a long forgotten yesterday,_

_be the person you always believed me to be…_

…_Take my hand but I can't promise you a bright future_

_this soon after what feels and was a lifetime of torture,_

_but I can promise as the door slams shut on his departure,_

_I'll stay and try to be the person you always believed me to be…_

…_I wish I could hold you in my arm and tell you it's okay,_

_kiss those tears that stain your cheeks away,_

_wipe your darkest, deepest fears into a long forgotten yesterday,_

_be the person you always believed me to be…_

…_I didn't see your tears behind your smiles before,_

_I was young, innocent, stupid, naïve and insecure,_

_but I've gotten older now and I'm a little more mature,_

_so now I try to be the person you always believed me to be…_

…_I wish I could hold you in my arm and tell you it's okay,_

_kiss those tears that stain your cheeks away,_

_wipe your darkest, deepest fears into a long forgotten yesterday,_

_be the person you always believed me to be…_

_your heart is aching, brimming with the pain that threatens to stay,_

_but I don't plan on leaving you, don't make me go away,_

_I'll stay and try to be the person you always believed me to be…_

Edward let the words pour out of his heart, dancing on the low, lulling melody in his mind and envelope his mother and her sobs grew less frightening.

_If music can no longer be my comfort, then let it be yours._

**AN:- hey everyone! I'm so sorry that this chapter is up so late. I'm really busy with school work right now. In form 4 there's no rest at all! I'm up to my ears in SBA's (School Based Assessments) so chapter will be posted as irregularly as this. Still working on the third chapter of CRY, for those of you who read it. Hope you like this chapter of TRFIY…Yup, Edward wrote a song for his mother. The name of it is "Growing Into The Man I Need To Be" and yes, I wrote it as in, it's an original, spat out of my mind…I hope you like it...when school starts back I'll try to get one of my music teachers to put a tune to it. Review please! Love from, Zakh.**


	8. going to make it right

**AN:- thank you everyone who reviewed the last chapter for your positive feedback about the song. I loved the reviews I'm getting for this story but PLEASE check out my other story CRY…it's a little less of a fanfic than this one but it's a good read all the same. Reviews=love…lol…always wanted to say that.**

When Elizabeth's sobs had finally subsided she crawled into the bed with Edward and snuggled up against his long frame. With a longing sigh she said to him, "Why can't I be strong like you, Edward, why?" He lay completely still, listening to her. "I love your sisters and brother very much but they've grown far away from me and as much as I know it is because of my relationship with you, I could never blame you. I would never blame you. Why can't they accept you? I wish they could see behind your face, you know. I wish they could see how intelligent and talented and strong you are. I want them see how beautiful your soul is."

_Even Mummy thinks I'm ugly…_

"You are a beautiful child, even if you have a deformity, you are still beautiful." Edward's eyes widened in complete disbelief. "You look so much like your father with you straight, strong features." Elizabeth sighed here, gulping down a sob before continuing. "I don't know what I'm going to do with your father. Even though we fight, I still love him with everything I am. I've never known love outside of your father, Edward. He was always there to keep me grounded and there to help me out in anyway he could. He held my had through all of the deliveries and cried with me when I held all of you for the first time. I remember, for our first date when I was sixteen." She had to stifle a small giggle. "He took me to an amusement park the weekend he came home from college with Uncle Kenneth, and his girlfriend who were both in my year and he and Kenneth completely pigged out on hot dogs and any and everything you could find to eat at the amusement park. It was amazing! He was twenty and he was so thin, I couldn't fathom how he could've eaten so much. So, they decided that they wanted to go on this ride called the Scrambler." Elizabeth choked out a watery laugh. "They puked all over each other and we had to go home early.

"I turned up on my doorstep smelling like puke and my father went crazy, thinking that Edward got drunk and I had to take care of him. Edward got out of the car, walked in a straight line three times and even threw in a cartwheel to appease my dad. It was so funny but it got me a second date with him." Then her mood grew somber. "He even ran away from college for a week when grandpa died two years after."

"I automatically flunked a Biology test for that one." Their heads turned and sure enough, Edward Masen Sr. stood in the doorway, leaning up against the doorframe a tight smile pushing up the corners of his lips with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his trousers.

"How long have you been here?" Edward saw the blatant love and relived hope shining his mother's undeniable eyes as she spoke in a flat voice.

"I came back to get my briefcase." He nodded his chin up in the direction of the corner of his son's hospital bed. "then I heard 'Why can't I be strong like you?'" He stood straight up and took his hands from his pockets, allowing them to fall limply at his sides. "Maybe, I didn't try hard enough to help you, Beth, and I don't want to be the one to take your children away from you nor do I want to be the one to walk away from us. We've been through too much together to let it all go down the drain like this without fighting for it." He made his way to the bedside with slow, deliberate steps. "I love you. I always have."

Edward looked between his mother and his father, waiting for one of them to do something, having a hard time believing that this was going to end well but also having a hard time keeping himself from hoping that it did. He watched in silent awe as Edward Sr. lowered his face to Elizabeth's and pressed his parted lips to hers, moving them slowly in time with hers, his eyes shut tight, tears falling onto her cheek. The man murmured I-love-you-s repeatedly with every new breath, causing his wife to sigh contentedly. Something happened that threw Edward; his father took his long, skeletal hand into his large own and broke away from Elizabeth's lips to look at his son intensely and say, "I love you, Edward, and I'm sorry that I haven't always been there for you."

_I love you too, Daddy…_Edward nodded with a small smile, sinking into his mother's now outstretched arms. When he missed the feel of his father's hand around his, he felt the bed sink behind him and Edward Sr. wrapped his arms around his wife and son as they drifted off to sleep.

He looked at his wife's face, her puffy, tearstained eyes and cheeks with her red and probably sore nose. She had not changed very much since he had first met her at one of Ken's parties; still heartbreakingly beautiful but looking more like a woman instead of a girl. Elizabeth had been standing in a corner, dressed in a large, loose-fitting, men's dress shirt, belted at the waist by a thick black leather belt, the tails of it hanging to about half way down her thigh. Her pants had been barely there and only a sliver of the black material could have only been seen under her shirt. She had piled her long, auburn ringlets high on top of her head and her wrists had been a mess of beads. The thing that had really sold it for him with her was the fact that while every other girl was wearing heels or Doc Martens, she had been wearing bright red, Converse high-tops with atrociously, fluorescent orange socks. Now, Edward Sr. smiled at the memory, his eyes sliding down to look at his son who had his face buried in the crook of his mother's neck.

"Oh, how wrong you are. All of the children look liked me but Edward, no matter how startling our resemblance, he's all you, Beth and yes, he is beautiful." He brushed Edward's curls off of his cheek and pressed a warm kiss there. "I love you, Edward." Stroking the ashen flesh of the boys face, feeling awful about how far he had let this go. "It may not seem like it but I do. I love you and your mother very much and I want to make things right."

Small gagging noises shook the boys shoulder, panicking his father but Edward Sr. froze as they gags subsided into something else.

"D-d-d-d-d-d-doh-doh-doh-don't-t-t-t-don't cr-cr-cr-cr-cry-y-y-cry." The man felt tears well up in his eyes. Edward spoke. He actually spoke! "D-d-d-d-don't cr-cr-cr-cry, m-m-m-muh-muh-muh-mum-mum-mum-mummy-ee-ee." A fit of coughing over took his frame and he shook violently. Edward looked down at his son in awe then his gaze flickered to his wife. "D-d-d-don't g-g-g-g-g-go-o-o-o-o, d-d-d-da-da-da-da-dad-dad-dad-daddy-ee-ee-ee."

"I won't," Edward Sr. sighed, laying back down and resting his chin on the boy's head. He was definitely trying harder this time.

**AN:- I hope you like this one. It's a little more positive but don't get too used to it. **


	9. unexpectedly it happened

**AN:- yo everyone! I know I haven't updated in a while. Things were really busy around my place. We were getting prepared to go off to the beach for five days. I'm at the house right now and it's awesome. Figured as I got my Toshiba avec moi I would cough up a chapter and post it when I get home. So here's chapter nine and a song for you. ****There's also a nice little surprise for you in here. I really wanna know how ALL of you who read this chapter feel about **_**it**_** so send me reviews PLEASE.**

The doctors refused to let Edward go home the next day. They were adamant about him staying on for a considerable amount of time to get him fairly healthy but Edward Sr. was adamant about taking him home. Eventually, he only ended up spending three days extra. The doctors were painfully curious about the condition Edward was found in. That would not do. Edward Sr. ended up paying them off.

On the third day, Edward sat up in his bed with a legal pad and a felt tip pen from his father's briefcase, scrawling the lyrics for a song that he had been formulating in his mind ever since he had seen his parents kiss. Kissing was a strange thing to him. He had wondered about the significance of it, considered the realistic aspects of it such as getting spit all over and inhaling the other person's breath but then he lost himself in what he had seen in his parents' kiss. There had been passion in it and apology. It had been soft and tender, loving, like a slow dance. Edward was confused by the hypocrisy of the entire thing; the fight each other, say they don't want each other, but they kiss like that.

…_And she watched her heart break over and over again_

_For him, for him, for him, over and over again,_

_Loving her pain over and over again_

_Just to save him from responsibility's strain-_

_Strain on the straps of his filled sack,_

_He carried the bag and she broke her back_

_Over and over again to save him from his own pain,_

_Save her shooting star from himself…_

…_Then you take my pain and my lips,_

_Kiss me into infinity and there after_

_You try to take my pain but claim my lips_

_And kiss me into infinity and there after…_

…_She listened to her words cut him over and over again_

_For me, for me, for me, over and over again,_

_She thought and loved his pain over and over again,_

_Just to save herself and tie a ribbon to numb her pain_

_And hated herself for being so callous,_

_She gave into undeniable malice_

_Over and over again to show him her pain,_

_Save her shooting star from himself…_

…_Then you take my pain and my lips,_

_Kiss me into infinity and there after_

_You try to take my pain but claim my lips_

_And kiss me into infinity and there after…_

…_And her shooting star races across her horizon,_

_Stopping at her window to kiss her with wild abandon_

_And his fickle promises keep her near for one night longer,_

_One night longer and she grows weaker and weaker._

_His light shines brighter and stronger_

_And her eyes grow bleaker and bleaker._

_Over and over again to keep him closer,_

_Save her shooting star from himself…_

…_Then you take my pain and my lips,_

_Kiss me into infinity and there after_

_You try to take my pain but claim my lips_

_And kiss me into infinity and there after…_

…_She can't save him from himself over and over again,_

_She falls deeper into the earth shattering pain_

_But with his spark on her tongue and heart at her lips,_

_She lets them both fade into the inevitable._

_Then he takes her soul and her lips,_

_Kisses her into infinity and there after_

_He tries to make her soul smile but claims her lips_

_And kisses her into infinity and there after…_

Elizabeth walked into the room with a tight smile just then, her husband slumping in shortly after her with a dark scowl. The boy looked between their faces, waiting for some outburst or at least some explanation but they just stood there, their expressions locked in place, fairly close to each other. Edward Sr. suddenly blew out a harsh breath before straightening up and loosening his tie further and popping open the second button on his dress shirt.

"I swear, Elizabeth, if that man so much as looks at you ever again, I will rip off his arm and beat his nose into his brain with it!" _Wow, daddy and I think alike._

"You? Edward, I was the one being virtually undressed and screwed! I feel utterly violated." She shuddered clutching her blouse up higher against her collar bones. "We should find Edward a new doctor."

"I agree." Edward Sr. was pouting now at his wife who laughed genuinely and in turn brought a smile to the man's face; he hadn't realized just how much he missed making her laugh. "Aside from the fact that he's behaving inappropriately around you, Beth, I didn't like how he was handling you, Edward." His father's eyes flashed as he focused on Edward's leg which was an unrecognizable bump under the sheet. "Do you feel comfortable around him?"

_Are you seriously asking me this question, daddy? _Whilst shaking his head slowly, Edward scrawled something quickly on the corner of a new page and tore it off, passing it to his father.

" 'You can borrow my crutch; metal hits harder.' " Elizabeth laughed heartily but shook her head at it, giving Edward a look that wiped the grin right off of the both faces of man and boy alike. "There's more, honey" Edward Sr. looked as innocent as he could muster with his face being older and harder now at forty-two than it had been at twenty. " 'He hurt my leg the last time we went to see him. I would definitely like a new doctor.' "

"It's settled then," Elizabeth sighed with a slight smile, toying again with the leaf pendant at her throat.

"Yes." Edward watched his father fold the note up and pocket it, pulling back the sleeve of his jacket to check the time. "I have to call the office. Carter Lawrence is really more like a nagging wife than my boss." Rolling his eyes he jogged out of the room.

The door swung close on his departure but a fair hand darted out to catch it before it closed completely and the strangest creature Edward had ever laid eyes on walked into the room. She was shorter than him, that was for sure, but just as thin and pale. Elizabeth smile at the newcomer, beckoning her to the bedside. The girl wore a long, tattered and dirty-looking cotton skirt of a colour he couldn't have recognized in any light that hung dangerously low on her hips, bunched up at the corner by about three large safety pins. She must have been his age because although he could see the straps of her training bra falling down her slender shoulders, along with the thin straps of her faded-black vest, she didn't have anything to put in it and still had her curves were now starting. Edward noticed during her dreadfully slow trudge to them, he listened to the soft squeaking of the soles of her leather slippers on the cold tile.

"Hello, Edward!" She knew who he was? Edward's eyes widened in the purest of all astonishments. "I'm in your homeroom at school! I'm Isabella Marie Swan, also know preferably as Bella and I got worried when you didn't show up at school these past few days so I asked Mrs. Hinderson and she said that you were in the hospital and that made me worry more so I decided to come visit you and tell you that I hope you get really better really soon and that the other kids are farts because they don't talk to you and that I don't think anything bad about you and that I didn't talk to you because I thought I would annoy you and I'm sure I'm doing it right now so I'm going to shut up!"

Edward was still incredibly stunned by this. He knew who this girl was. He knew all the faces in his middle school homeroom but like she had said, none of them talked to him so this was heart-stopping. Elizabeth smiled hugely at the little girl. She was very pretty under the dirt and mass of bead that hung on her neck and arms. Her lips were soft and round and her smile shone straight into Elizabeth's heart, the smile, brightening the little girl's deep brown eyes, set deep in her little, heart-shaped face from what looked like lack of sleep.

"Edward?" His head snapped to the side to his mother. "Where are your manners? Don't just stare at the girl! Say something to her." He knew what his mother meant and began writing quickly.

_Hello, Bella. I know who you are. You're also in my Math and Science class. Thank you for you concern. Thanks for thinking nice things about me. You'r not annoying me. I like that you are talking to me. _Edward drew an awkward smiley. He was thirteen after all and girls were still foreign and strange territory. She read the note, scrunching up her brow in concentration which was admittedly…cute? A smile broke across Bella's face.

"That's good to know. I have to go now, Edward, my daddy's waiting outside for me. It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Masen." The girl skipped out of the room, the note clutched to her chest. Elizabeth looked at the door that closed shut on the strange girl's leave, thinking about what had just occurred and measuring the authenticity of her words.

"I like her," Elizabeth said to her son, smiling brightly at the far-from-nonchalant look on Edward's face. "Don't look like that. She's just a little girl." Edwrd's eyes grew larger and Elizabeth laughed harder this time around. "Okay, I get it. Girls and germs are the same at your age."

**AN:- okay, I now I'm staying on a positive note but mainly because I want to make this story longer than I intended to when I started it. It was meant to be a one-shot then I realized I had too much ideas for it. Lol. Anyway, it is IMPERITIVE THAT YOU REVIEWTHIS CHAPTER so that I'll know how I should continue with Bella.**


	10. taking a turn

**AN:- wazzup peoples? I'm back! This chapter is centered mainly around Edward and his relationship with his father. Enjoy.**

Edward breathed heavy sighs of relief at any an every opportunity as he hobbled through the automatic hospital doors and out onto the warm, damp asphalt of the parking lot next to his father. He had missed the scent of it as it dried and the smell of the rain. After a full seven and a half days of inhaling nothing but the bitter nauseating medicinal air, his nostrils - still a bit sore - were soothed in the cool breeze.

"Alright, Edward, we need to talk," he said suddenly as he and his son made their way to the car, examining the boy out of the corner of his eye; admittedly, Edward looked healthier and plumper but still scrawny. The nurses managed to help him put on ten pounds but he needed to get up to one-thirty. Edward Jr. looked up at him expectantly but smiled softly that beautiful smile he had inherited from his mother. His smile parted his cleft infinitesimally but his whole face lit up magnificently and the man felt a sob catch at the back of his throat for a moment. He cleared his throat before continuing, "I'm taking you to a place my father took me when I was your age and I took Riley there as well." He cleared his throat again, uncomfortably. "I should've taken you before."

_It__'s alright, Dad._

"Edward, now I need you to understand that I love you very much." The boy bit down hard on his bottom lip. "You were always one of my miracles." Edward opened his mouth to mouth some to his father. "No, let me finish. I was not a very good father to you. I couldn't come to terms with the fact that it just might be my screwed up genes that made you this way. I was content to just curse God for spiting me without even realizing that he gave me someone infinitely more precious that whatever I had initially wanted." He helped the boy into the front seat, putting all of his stuff in the back seat of his Ford Hybrid. The child sat, fiddling with his thumbs while his father made his way around the car to the driver's seat. He was biting his lips to fight back heavy tear, trying his utmost best to be a man and not cry. He wasn't sure if he was entirely ready to hear what his father had to say to him without going into hysterics. Edward Sr. didn't take long to secure himself in his seat but he made sure to start the car and pull out of the premises before exhaling sharply.

"Your uncle, Ken, when he was born, he was born with a severe case of scoliosis. He wore a brace until his college graduation. My dad, he died before you were born, he was born a mute just like you. I had twin sisters you know. They were five years younger than me. They were Siamese twins. They lived to be five and died of heart failure. My other brother, who died before I was even born, was autistic along with some of my cousins. A few had Aspareger's, some were bipolar, depressed, born with memory problems, others born with DID. " Edward looked at his fiddling thumbs, twitching to hold himself together. "Your mum doesn't even know about any of this except for your grandfather's story. A good bit of my relatives were born with disfigurements or mental illnesses and I resented them for it. I resented them for almost ending up like them. I got off easy; I just have a mild case of ADD.

"Then when you were born," Edward Sr. sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it up so that it stuck out in odd directions - almost like Edward's, "I hated them for being the way they were. I knew that you would be like your mother, well, I hoped you would look just like your mother. I saw it in the others. They started looking less and less like me and I figured this time, I'd get an angel to remind me of Elizabeth. I'd see her beauty through God's prism of innocence and I knew it would be breathtaking, regardless of its gender. Then when you were born disfigured, it was like an arrow through my heart. I thought it was a curse, that it was some cruel joke, a harsh misunderstanding."

_He hated me__…I knew…I knew…I knew but it hurts… _The boy threw his notions of 'being a man' straight out and cried brokenly and sob-less, wetting his clenched hands with the hot liquid. His father let him cry for a minute.

"But now…" He looked over at his son. "Edward, are you listening?" Edward Jr. nodded his head vigorously, looking up at his father with the slightest of reluctance. "But now, after so much time of stupidity, I realize just how immature I really was. You are Elizabeth's angle and that beauty had never been any clearer than it is now through that same prism of innocence." He rolled the windows down as they drove on, peeking ever so often to look at his son's locks dancing around his head, his striking, battered cherub. "Ill say it again, son, I love you, more than words, more than ever before because now I understand everything your mother was trying to show me."

They drove in silence a little way longer before the man spoke again. "Did you ever hear Riley speaking about the Masen Sanctum?"

Edward nodded. Riley spoke about it often, mostly whenever he was around and just like Riley had anticipated, Edward would feel sad.

"Well, it's just this cave my dad found with his father and it became a tradition to bring all Masen sons to this place. Our family is pretty large. You can't even begin to imagine the amount of people who have been to this place." Edward felt his eyes widened. It sounded like magic and wonder, mystery and enchantment, promise and paradise. "So many good men have tramped that gravel and many more men will do so but today, it'll just me you and I." His father smiled at him and he saw more promise there; promise of something better.

* * *

The 'Masen Sanctum' wasn't too far off the interstate. "Hop onto my back, the ground is too uneven for you." They walked a little way along a dirt trail before the wide, formidable opening of the cave stretched out before them. It was almost easy to miss between the two large willows with their canopy of crying branches.

"Now, we can't go in here today, 'cause it's been closed for a while. There have been some really bad cave in but I thought it was important for me to bring you here in the first place. Now we have our own sanctum memory." Edward Sr. laughed wryly at the fact that they actually hadn't been able to enter the cave. It felt new; he felt new and filled with purpose. Life flourished all around him, plants stretching dirt-bruised leaves up to sparse tongues of sunlight, trees rising like columns of great Roman buildings, fantasies of playing 'Gladiator' with his boys came to mind.

Edward propped his chin on his dad's shoulder, looking straight ahead and right at a wall of shear rock, lighter in the shape of the opening of the cave. He wrinkled his nose at the damp scent of the dirt then his took a deep breath of his father's cologne. He sighed and let it all sink in at that moment. Here he was, with his father at this special place. It was, for a lack of a better word, amazing. For a thirteen year old, he was realistic and he knew this wouldn't change things with his siblings but he got his father and then it seemed to be all that really mattered. He would deal with his sibling later on.

"Dad," he rasped out, his voice low and heavy, gritty and dry, leading into a small coughing fit. The man froze, turning his head slowly to look at his son. "Dad," Edward said again with a bright smile before screwing up his face in effort. Edward Sr. stayed quiet, waiting patiently for Edward to say what he wanted but he felt the joyous tears welling up and prickling at the corners. "L-l-luh-luh-luh-vuh-vuh-eh-luh-vuh-love-vuh love y-y-yuh-yuh-oo-yuh-oo you." He cleared his throat. "Love you."

"I love you too, kiddo." his father smiled tenderly at him. "I'm proud of you. I know it must take a lot of effort to speak and, quite frankly, I'm amazed you can speak at all but since you are, we'll take you to a speech therapist and see what goes on from there." The boy nodded. Both of them looked back around at the cave thinking the same thing; it'd be nice to have all the Masen boys out here but Riley was not going to make this easy.

_The next week_

Elizabeth kissed her husband before pushing his grumbling form out of the door to get some groceries. He stood on the doormat, pouting at his giggling wife before turning his nose up into the air and jogging off to the car, grocery list peeking out of the back pocket of his jeans. He turned around at the car door to tease her. She grinned at him before rolling her eyes and closing the door. He had told her about what he had done the week before and she was so damn proud of him for it but he was so right when he mentioned Riley. Said son walked into the living room just then, smiling radiantly at her, running at her and grabbing her up in a huge hug and swinging her around.

"Hello, beautiful," he crooned, winking and wiggling his eyebrows.

"What do you want, mister," she laughed, holding onto his broadening shoulders.

"You caught me," he sighed, good-naturedly, "I want food." He patted his stomach, rubbing it extravagantly, even pulling up his jersey in the process.

"You need to wait a while," she poked his stomach with a gentle finger, "Go get Edward." His face noticeably folded at the mention of his brother and angry lines formed at his eyebrows. "Riley," she cautioned him, "Please, don't do this today."

"He's always taking you from us!" he screamed brutally.

"You don't get to say anything! You don't get to say anything at all after what you did and you're lucky your father and I didn't take some serious disciplinary measures!" Elizabeth was screaming directly in his face, his angry, distorted, flushed face. "I was about to send the lot of you fucking brats off to military school after putting your brother in the hospital. Did you even stop to think about the consequences of your actions? They had to stick a tube down his throat to suck vomit of his lungs! I had to listen to my baby scream when they bathed him in disinfect! He was unconscious for a while and those were the longest moments of my life." She looked at him through tear-blurred eyes and saw that he was crying too. "You keep saying shit about how he's always taking me from you ut you fail to realize that I'm all that kid has and I need to protect him from the likes of you and your siblings. You are old enough now to realize that this shit has gotten old now go get your brother."

"Yes, Mum," Riley said hoarsely, hanging his head. He'd never meant to hurt his mother like that and now as he thought about it, she was right; he was old enough. He trudged up the stairs, leaving his mother breathing heavily as she tried to compose herself. Riley wiped away his tears on the landing. He could still feel his jealousy and his rage but he needed to do this for his mum and then, maybe just maybe, he thought Edward might not be so bad after all. He just needed to make an effort to get to know him. Edward's bedroom door was open and he could hear odd gagging and stuttering noises from behind the door.

"Ruh-ry-rile-ruh-ile-lee-ruh-lee-rile-lee." Then a short bout of rattling coughs. "Riley."

With a deep sigh and a warm feeling that stretched to his toes, he pushed open the door to see his little brother sitting on the middle spot of his bed with his malformed leg stretched out in front of him and his left hand cupped mildly around the front of his neck. "Hey, bro."

Edward looked up in utter surprise, eyes large at the idea of a friendly Riley, nodding stiffly when he came to his senses. _Was Riley just nice to me? Did I do something wrong? Is there more trouble? Please no!_

"Mum's whipping up something so I came to get you," Riley grinned easily, winking and surprising them both, "Wanna come help me convince her to make us a pizza disgustingly heaped with every cheese and meat known to man?" Riley found himself loosening up with each word, coming to see that the only reason he didn't like his brother was because he made himself not like him. Edward nodded eagerly and launched himself off the bed, landing with a heavy thump on his butt. Both of them froze them each started laughing, Riley moving into the room and picking up Edward. When he righted him, hand extended towards a crutch, he stopped and swung Ed onto his back, grabbing a crutch in case before running out of the room, whooping with laughter.

"Hey, Edward," he said suddenly. Edward looked at him, nodding in prompt. "You ain't so bad after all. I'm sorry, man." Curiously, Edward held out his hand for a handshake. Riley stared at it, measuring it's value for a small while. He grabbed it and shook it surely.

_You ain't too bad either…bro._

**AN:- okay. I've finally gotten this chapter out. I am so sorry that I've taken so long with it and that it isn't very long. I had a serious writer's block for this and that sucked. Now I just need to post the new chapter of CRY which, sadly, isn't being reviewed at all. I would really appreciate it if you reviewed my stories. Your opinions will make me a better writer. I welcome advice and story recommendations. Oh and please read my other stories and review those as well. Please read and review THE RIVER FLOWS IN YOU(THIS ONE), CRY, STAY WITH ME WHILE I PLAY THE PIANO IN THE DARK FOR YOU and OH STAR, NO OTHER LOVE COMPARES TO MINE. I would really appreciate it. And yes, I'm begging you for your reviews.**


	11. love triangles

**AN:- okay, chapter eleven. I would like to thank those who reviewed my last chapter and who are still with me after my long break, plus welcome my new readers. I've decided to take this story on a different route than what I intended but it is indeed for the better. Please enjoy and review this chapter. And there is no lemon is this chapter, I need to say so from now, even though there's a bit of a suggestive part.**

Riley laid, stretched out across the living room floor with an incredibly full gut and a content grin. Edward was sleeping heavily on the couch, his full stomach pushing against his jersey slightly. It'd almost seemed like the right thing to do back then - hate him. His older sister, Elizabeth did and she bred it into him well, so well for a matter of fact that it felt some how dishonest and traitor-like not to. But then again, Elizabeth resented him and Caroline as well - not as much as Edward, but still resentment all the same - for being born but she had used Edward to unite us all and then she had made their parents resent them…

"She fuckin' played us," Riley whispered, half-shocked, his eyes widening. His fingers gathered up locks of his soft hair and he held his head, "I don't believe she played us and we believed her."

"Riley." He rolled unto his stomach swiftly. Edward shifted and whispered it again - "Riley." - and he relaxed. He smiled a the next word. "Pizza." With some difficulty, he heaved himself off of the floor and trudged over to the couch, sitting down on the edge at his brother's hip. Edward's hair was longer than the last time he had bothered to notice what the kid looked like, curling around his neck and ear, under the lobe and catching on the corners of his eyes and mouth. Riley touched a lock with a curious finger. It was a pretty colour, just like mum's, and strangely enough, having more red than brown and the slightest tint of their father's blond. Edward had long lashes like their sisters and they fanned across his purples bags deeply. _'He has strong, sharp features like dad'_, Riley thought, _'but the edges are only slightly curved. He really looks like Mum.'_ His lips pouted out when he slept, swollen and pink, like a little girl's. _'ok, he's barely into puberty, I could let that one slide.'_ Even with that clef he wasn't a bad-looking kid, people just wouldn't stop to find out.

"Elizabeth wouldn't stop to find out."

"Riley! You home?!" _'Speak of the bitch and she walks through the fuckin' door…'_

"Yeah, I'm in here with Edward!" he called back, figuring it was now or never to face this. He heard the mad clatter of heels clicking down the front hallway. She swung into the room, her hair flying heavily behind her. She was beautiful, frigidly beautiful, like an ice sculpture with her creamy white skin and deep blue ocean eyes that made you feel like you were falling into some sort of helpless, hopeless unknown but it was beautiful enough to excuse it all the same. He waited for the last strand of her hair to fall back unto her shoulder, sliding off like warm butter, to sway behind her. _'Just like an ice sculpture; cold-hearted.'_ She looked at him expectantly, angrily, her face twisting up into a somewhat adorable scowl with the smallest of semblances to a pout but this was no kitten anger.

"What are you doing?" Elizabeth was seething heavily at him, her blue eyes onyx now. Riley recognized the fight burning in her eyes but stood firm.

"I'm hanging out with Edward, we just had pizza and he not too long knocked out," he replied flippantly, looking down at his brother again, seeing the healing scrapes, knowing fully well that they'd cut deep enough to scar him - _they scarred him_, "I was just about to wake him up to go take a shower and put his meds on the cuts." Without really thinking about it, he rose and lifted the small boy, turning to look at his icily lovely sister squarely in the eye and then without thought again, he said, "I love you Elizabeth. So very much. You've cared about me and loved me like a older sister should and I couldn't ask for anything' better, sis, but I ain't livin' like this anymore. 'S not right." Elizabeth was beside herself with anger and he could see her struggling to form words vile enough. "I knew this would happen. I knew you wouldn't have liked it but it's the way things gotta be. I ain't livin' with all that hate anymore. I'm finished." He left her, crying her anger out in silent tears and wondering what the Hell was wrong with him. Edward stirred twice as the marched up the stairs, saying, "Lizzie." and "Pretty."

"Kid," Riley sighed wryly, smiling half-heartedly, "it's only on the outside for you. She's like a Venus Fly Trap; draw you in and have you for lunch." Riley pulled the clothes off of his brother and did something he'd never once thought about doing; he kissed Edward gently on his forehead and woke him with tender nudges and soft words.

* * *

Edward leaned mostly on Riley as they staggered into the bathroom, still partially asleep. He lay himself awkwardly in the bathtub, looking around for a moment, trying to catch himself. Like his mother would whenever he was sick, Riley turned on the tap and let the warm water pool around his legs and posterior. He watched his older brother pulled up the stool near the tub and sat with his legs open, his elbows propped on his knees, hands clasped, hanging between his legs, then Riley watched him with a warm but levelled gaze.

"Mind if I ask you something, Edward?" The question was phrased in a careful way and he dropped his eyes as he spoke. Edward smiled at him I affirmation. "Ok, er, I need a drink…" Riley's voice trailed off and Edward laughed silently at his brother's case of nerves, stopping when Riley glared playfully at him. "I'm serious, I ain't got the slightest idea how hard this is for me, kid, but I gotta ask you." With a chin-lift, the younger boy prompted him. "Ok." The older brother blew out a sharp, heavy gust of air. "I dunno if you're just humourin' me and runnin' with what I'm tryin' to do but I would like to know if you could ever forgive me for what I've done to you over the years. I was wrong." Edward's eyes clouded with emotion, ducking his head away from those probing eyes. "Edward, look at me." He looked up obediently to see Riley's eyes shining fever bright. His eyes looked odd to Edward. They weren't cold or burning with any negative emotions. They…they…they looked like his father's last week. Things were happening so fast. After everything being wrong, this sudden change was giving him a slight whiplash. "This is so new to me," Riley went on, his eyes growing unfocused and misted, "Mum, well, she blew up on me and everything kinda sunk in today. It happened so fast and honestly, my head is fuckin' spinnin' and I just need to stop and do this right. I need to, so please, could you ever forgive me? I don't expect you to do so right away or even at all, now that I think 'bout it." Riley's nose wrinkled up in obvious distaste.

The warm water was up to Edward's chest now and he felt like he was surrounded with warmth, much like he was feeling about his family right now. He felt like his mother, father and Riley had encapsulated him in this wonderful bubble of warmth that protected him from everything else; he felt like he was bathing in love. Edward didn't know why but he saw everything in peoples eyes. His father's deep ocean blue pools moved and rippled with his emotion, like water, washing away his fears and the negativity that was crippling him. His mother's evergreen - every-green - fey-like eyes blurred like winds through the forest and blew a blanket of security onto him, caressing his broken and beaten body. In Riley's eyes, things felt different. He saw bright lights in his eyes, like blinding neon beams, brighter than his parents, shining on him and warming him up on the inside. Then the colours swirled in his sleepy haze, sucking him in like whirlpools. Edward knew he was safe with Riley now. Without knowing he started, he nodded slowly, eventually nodding faster and harder, making sure Riley got the point.

'_I forgive you…I love you, Riley…Thank you.'_

Riley's eyes misted up fast and the tears fell over, running down in speedy little rivulets down his flat cheeks. Riley launched himself into the bathtub, hugging his kid brother to him and crying. "Thank you, so much, Edward," he sobbed into Edward's hair, water landing in heavy sloshes on the tiles. Edward listened to them hit the floor, his heart hitting his solar plexus just as hard, forcing a lump into his throat and tears into his eyes. It wasn't long before he was crying with Riley, is sobs breathy and painfully ragged, not as soft and muted as the older boy. "I won't let you down." Edward shake his head to emphasize his brother's point. "And I'm all wet now." They both laughed together.

* * *

Elizabeth was sitting in the kitchen, her chin thoughtfully propped up on her intertwined fingers. Riley had come around… She smiled to herself for a moment, her lips eventually splitting into a full blown grin. Her older son had finally come around. Things were definitely getting much, much better now.

"Beth?" Her husband slammed the front door shut, walking into the kitchen, his arms laden with brown paper bags.

"Hey, sexy," she teased, laughing at his widening eyes.

He cleared his throat and rested the bags on the counter. His cheeks were flushed pink and his smile sheepish. "Well, I do try to look good." He shrugged, playing cocky.

"Mmhm." Elizabeth smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. His large hands squeezed each hip and pulled her pelvis flush against his, she sighed, her eyes growing into the dark green of a nocturnal forest. Playfully, he took her upper lip between his teeth, nibbling softly then moistening with a swipe of his tongue, switching to the next lip. She rubbed her thumbs behind his ear, gazing into his hazy, midnight blue eyes, lidded with lust, before kissing him fully, her tongue slipping between his sharp, hard teeth to slide over his, colliding forcefully as he tried to stick his tongue into her mouth. She felt his arousal growing against the small bump of her lower stomach. He dragged his lips away from hers, creating a hot, wet trail across her face and up to her ear.

"I miss you," he moaned into her ear, licking the shell, "I miss your kisses and touches and embraces." Elizabeth felt her eyes flutter close and a long breath tickle her lips. "I miss being with you, Beth." He kissed the tender spot where her cheek met her ear. "I miss being with you and just being us." Edward sucked her ear lobe into his mouth, playing with it with his tongue, lazily, causing her to make small mewling noises. "I want it all back," he growled softly in her ear, backing her up into the counter, his nips and kisses more ferocious now, "I want you back."

"I love you," she said in a breathy cry, her hand moving down the front of his shirt to grip it and pull it out of the waistband of his pants, "Please."

"You don't have to ask. You never had to ask." He groaned out when her fingers trembled against his bare stomach, instinctively moving around to play with the light sprinkle of blond stomach hair. Edward's lips ghosted over her collarbone, catching on the elastic neckline of her blouse and dragging it down her shoulder. She curled her fingers around his belt and waistband, muffling a scream in his shoulder when he bit down hard on her supple flesh.

"The kids!" Elizabeth suddenly remembered, squeezing the garments fisted in her hand harder in anxiety. His hips bucked against her.

"The kids," she whispered in a staccato voice.

"The kids?" he prompted teasingly, kissing down the middle of her chest but stopping at a modest location to look up through his eyes lashes at her.

"Bedroom," she growled in her little kitten-growl, pulling his hair.

"Bedroom," he agreed, freezing with his mouth in an 'O' of shock when he heard movement down the stairs.

"Edward, let's see if we could get mum to make us a cheesecake." It was Riley and he was.

"No!" Edward whispered in shock.

"Yes!" Elizabeth whispered back teasing him.

"Okay, I'll deal with my surprise later," he said suddenly, "You. Bedroom. Now."

Elizabeth laughed heartily, pinching his cheek and darting up the second flight of stairs in the kitchen, thanking God her boys hadn't come down those as he husband followed her up with playful, promising growls.

**AN: Like I said, no lemons. =) I don't want to do that to this story but I figured that Elizabeth and Edward needed that moment. Please tell me how you feel about this chapter. I feel like it's one of my most important chapters. I would like to thank all of those who reviewed EVERYONE of my chapters! Thank you. You people and your stories are AWESOME!! 3**


	12. this is kinda different

**AN:- can you say finally? Lol. Yes. So here I am alone in my classroom updating my fanfic cuz everyone else somewhere where I should also be. Lol. Oh well, right? Here's chapter twelve for you. By a show of hands, who loves my little Bella? wink, wink**

They looked around the kitchen in confusion. Edward swore he heard his parents' voice from the kitchen. "They must have gone out again," Riley surmised, lifting the curtain. He frowned. "but their cars are still here. Probably went upstairs to relax or something'." He shrugged and Edward giggled at the odd movement. "Well, I took a year of home ec. I should be able to make a cheesecake." Edward's grin slid off of his face. He'd seen some of Riley's attempts at cooking and they weren't all too great. He shook his head fervently, grabbing onto Riley's head and shaking it along with his. Riley didn't do too well with quick sudden movements and he all but threw Edward unto a kitchen stool before puking his pizza out violently in the trashcan.

'_Whops…'_

Riley turned around in slow-motion, glaring at him but still looking dog-sick. He was ashen and slightly green. His glare wavered and his eyes fogged up before he retched into the can again, heaving twice dryly before spilling. He dry heaved for a while after, indicating that he ad spilt everything. Coughing, he staggered over to the sink to wash away the taste.

'_I didn't know,' _Edward mouthed, panicked, bracing himself for something.

"'S okay. Not your fault that I got a weak stomach. But that pizza was only meant to travel in one direction. Fuck, hat was awful!" Riley attempted a laugh before wincing. Edward looked at him sympathetically, making the sign for sorry.

"You can sign?" His older brother seemed completely and honestly surprised.

"Some," Edward rasped, "I c-c-c-c-ca-a-a-a-a-an-ca-c-a-ca-can-can-an m-m-m-m-muh-may-may-make-kuh-kuh-make f-fuh-fuh-our-oh-oh-r-r-r-r-fo-our-our-four-our." He coughed delicately for a few minutes, clearing his throat. "Sorry." He made the sign. "book, bag and toilet." Both of them cracked big smiles at the end. Edward rapidly signed the alphabet. "A-ah-ah-al-alf-alf-ah-fuh-ah-luh-fuh-alfuh-bet-et-et-buh-buh-et-buh-et-bet-al-fuh-buh-buh-et-alfuh-bet-alpha-bet-alphabet-bet-bet-et-alhpha-bet."

Riley felt torn as he listen to Edward speak. He wanted him to keep speaking because Edward has this soft voice. It was gentle and kind, not too low or high, yet to crack but still boyish and it sounded either like a laugh or a cry. He also wanted him to shut the hell up. It was painful to watch him heave and cough, listen to the cold rattling in his throat and every time when he was finished speaking, he looked slightly worse for wear than before, not to mention he words started fading away. The door bell rang just then, pulling him away from his confusion. He left Edward on the stool, jogging into the living room to get it. He was shocked at first when he saw the person in the door way then he just didn't know what to think. The first question that popped into his mind: _'What the fuck is that?'_.

"Hello, Riley Masen, my name is Isabella Swan. I'm here to see Edward Masen," it said in a chipper voice and it was then he realized that it was in fact a girl and not a 'thing'.

"Uh, sure?" He led the small girl into the house. "Edward, you have a visitor." The look on Edward's face? Priceless. The kid turned ghostly pale and his eyes grew large enough to fall out of his skull. "Bella?" he gasped at the girl.

"Hey, Edward!" She ran over to him and grabbed him up in a bear hug, squeezing him to her chest. Edward blushed so deeply, wrapping his arms awkwardly around her back. "I'm so happy that you're out of the hospital. I skipped school today so I could come and visit you but my mummy made me wait until this evening to come to see you 'cause she thought I would've interrupted something."

"Aw, no," Riley interrupted, "if you came earlier, you could've had pizza with us. We ate all of it by ourselves." He flashes her a grin, running his fingers through his hair. Did Edward just glare at him for turning on the charm? Amusing… "Well, I'm gonna shower, I think I have a date tonight. Thanks for today, Edward." He watched Edward with a s much intent in his eyes as he could manage, smiling tenderly when he nodded infinitesimally and maybe a bit grimly. He left the room, fishing his wet cell phone out of his pocket and looking at it tragically. "So much for texting someone to spring me. Home phone, here I come."

* * *

"So how have you been?" Edward looked at her in awe for a moment. She was clean this time, wearing pants too, even though the were ratty and old with a football jersey that fell past her knees. He couldn't for the life of him think of something intelligent to say before he remembered he couldn't really say anything.

"Good," he managed, shrugging, suddenly thinking to motion to the empty seat next to him. With a bright smile that could only be else wise described as Bella-like, she struggled up into the stool. It was cute? When she was seated, she wiggled around for a while to get comfortable.

"I miss you in school."

Edward was too startled to say or think anything. _'She misses me.'_

"You're so different from everyone else. You don't treat me badly like the rest of the kids because I'm not rich or pretty."

He grabbed the note pad from the counter and a pen. _'I'm not in a better situation than you and I would never treat anyone like that. My mum raised me better than that.'_

"I'm glad. You've got a big heart, Edward. Will you be my friend?"

Edward looked into her earnest brown eyes, measuring the worth of her request and giving in when he saw her eyes shine impossibly brighter. He nodded slowly, a shy smile tugging at his lips, he held his hand out to her for a shake. She grasped it and wrung it hard, causing his teeth the chatter. She had a big heart too and he couldn't help but trust her when she was so willing to trust him.

She blushed as she scrutinized my face openly. "Lauren is blind, you are cute." Edward felt his face get redder than hers and he felt like his ears were steaming. She giggled.

* * *

Riley stuffed his fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing. He came down the stairs just in time to hear it. Shaking his wet hair around his face, he called, "Hey, Eddie-cutie-pie, I'm leaving now!"

**AN:- ok, honestly, this chapter was more like a filler to integrate Bella a little more into the family so I'm sorry it's so short. I hope you like it cuz I'm not too sold on it. I do like, however, Riley's fun. XD**

**Ok, not just two stories! Three yo! I'm good…. Lol. But I really and truly am so sorry that this wasn't as good as the Cry chapter and that the Cry chapter wasn't as good as the Prose Fiction chapter.**


	13. this isn't reality

**AN:- ok, well, I'm glad you all liked my filler but now I wanna try and get down to some serious business. Now tell me, who likes Elizabeth junior?**

Riley had to be kidding. Something had to be seriously wrong with him. She must have been dreaming for this to be real. Shit like this didn't happen in the reality she lived in so clearly this must not be reality. Definitely not reality if Riley cares about that little monster, fuck no not reality if her parents were fucking instead of trying to kill each other. She paced in her room, her brand new heels long forgotten and tossed in a corner. In this new world, she had no control. If Riley had already turned then Caroline wouldn't be far behind, always being the one to stick to Riley and his fierce loyalty. _'Well, the fuck isn't loyal to me anymore. Well, I don't need either of them! Never have and never will. They took my parents away from me!'_

She paced with even more fury, listening to the small giggles drifting up through the thin flooring. She heard Riley in the bathroom, most likely showering to go meet up with one of his dick-headed friends or worse yet, those skanky girls that hang around him. Well, she didn't give a fuck! She didn't give a fuck about them or this family if she couldn't have it the way she wanted it. This was her domain and her mother had been causing problems for too long. It was all here fault that Edward had proved to be such a thorn in her side. Her mother was beautiful beyond normal proportions, inside and out, and it was more than clear exactly why her father had become enamoured with her. It was her mother's big heart that made it so hard for Elizabeth to really hurt Edward but she couldn't have lied, having her father wrapped so snugly around her finger did make it a bit easier. Honestly, she was Daddy's _first_ little girl, and who else would Daddy have spoiled but her?

She thought about the way she had felt when everyone stopped playing with her when little Riley had come home. She had looked over the pictures of her siblings more than once. Riley had been born with a full head of hair in a shock of strawberry-blond - or at least that's what it looked like - and he was long and thin but still a healthy baby of 6lbs 6oz - according to his baby book. She had been told that she had been excited and thought that Riley had been a doll. Her parents had teased her for years about wanting to be Riley's mother, always pushing him around in her baby pram when she was old enough to do so and until he couldn't have fit in it anymore. Caroline she had cared less for and when she had been born, Elizabeth and Riley had started having disputes and pretty soon enough, when Caroline was old enough to decide for herself, she added to the tension building in the household. Their parents hadn't seemed to be as in love as they had always been, plaguing the house with bitter, long silences and cold, eerie sighs.

Then Edward had come along…

Her throat swelled with anger as she thought about him. She threw herself down violently onto her duvet, screaming into the pale blue covering. Edward had come into the picture, all of their mother but like some perverse version of her with that face and that leg... She had been five then but now, so many years after, she couldn't get past the image that had caused her to spew the contents of her little stomach all over the living room floor we they had brought him home. She had seen his hair and had thought that he would be a pretty baby; pretty babies were easier to resent but then she saw him and she hadn't resented him. No, she had hated him - as she did now - and his face had terrifies her to no end. She had woken up screaming many a-night from nightmares about that face looming towards her out of the soft green blanket with a wide stretched out smile that pulled the cleft completely apart but had they taken heed of her? No, she had become a nuisance to them both, even though they, both, had seemed just as opposed to their 'child'.

But, as she knew all to well, life didn't stay one way; it changed and turned and it had turned in such a sharp direction that had caused her mother's heart to swallow Edward and allow him to grow and develop within the recesses of her affection. This new direction that her life was heading in…She wasn't a helpless little kid anymore. Elizabeth was stronger now and even though her mother had trapped Riley and her father too, she just needed the right trigger to set things in back on the track she had spent a lifetime of malice carving. _'I'm malicious because you made me. Was it so hard to keep loving me the way you did when it was just me alone?'_

Her chest hurt and for the first time in a long time, she felt her glacial heart crack just a bit. Tears brimmed in her eyes and ran in hot rivulets that pooled, soaking through the material, on the duvet. Thin, ragged cries tore from her chest and were absorbed into the blue, lost in it and never to be heard. After all, who hears ice melting?

**AN:- ok, I updated this one. The PROSE FICTION chapter is still in the works and I'm now setting off to update CRY again. Peace, love and orange juice.**


	14. adjusting

**AN:- I know there are possibly people who hate me for not updating as religiously as I should have but I'm in exams and sneaking some time to be good to you people, my readers. I need to put in a few more, AKA two or three for the most, filler chapters to really get where I want t get but I don't like half-assed filler chapters so ima try to make them somewhat important to the story. Edward goes back to school in this chapter so we'll see some of Bella. =) Enjoy!**

It was a bleak day and Elizabeth couldn't seem to shake the ominous feeling that hung over her as she sat in the kitchen with Riley who was struggling with the Calculus homework that he had left for last minute in favour of going out with some girl. Studying the absent way he stared out of the window with a tense set to his jaw and shoulders, she couldn't help but think that he felt it too. With a heavy sigh, he twirled the mechanical pencil a few times before letting it slip away and fall unto the pages of his textbook. _'I remember buying him that a few years ago,' _she thought to herself, linking the battered, pale rose and red plaid of the pencil's body with a memory of a fifteen year old Riley pouting and insisting that he had never seen a pencil like it and that he'd be the only boy he knew who was 'comfortable enough in his sexuality to own such a pansy coloured pencil' and that he had to have it.

"Today," he began in a low voice, holding his breath for a while before going on, "I feel like something shit's gonna happen." She didn't even have to heart to tell him off for his poor choice of words as she nodded in agreement. Then, quite suddenly, something click with both of them.

"Edward!" they gasped in unison, standing abruptly, all forgotten. In a mad scramble, they ran up the stairs to his room. They flung the door out of the way and the sound of the door hitting the wall caused Edward to yelp and start so sharply that he fell right out of bed.

"Edward!"

"Dammit, Ed!"

The both of them rushed around to help him struggle back into bed. Edward looked from one to the next, feeling disgruntled and worriedly irritated. He baulked at the thought that something might be grievous wrong with either of them and, frantically, mouthed incoherently what he hoped were words of urgent questioning.

"Thank God you're ok," his mother said, slumping down unto the bed beside him. Riley, however, opted to fall unto the floor in a exhalation of exhaustion.

"Yeah, no shit. You almost stopped my ol' ticker." Riley scowled briefly.

'_What's going on?'_

Now, he was beyond the point of confusion as he all but broke his neck to look between them swiftly. He only stopped when he efficiently put a crick in his neck. Hissing and cradling the now useless body part, he waited for one of them to fill him in. The sense of something bad that they brought in with them permeated his sheets and his skin in a weird slimy way. Was this what they were talking about?

"We were afraid that something had happened to you." His mother spoke first, looking him over with large eyes fraught with worry. He stared into them for a moment, wondering why they would think such a thing. "We had this bad feeling…"

"Understatement of the century, mother dearest," Riley interjected in a sarcastic tone.

"Hope at last!" Elizabeth erupted suddenly. Her sons looked at her with large incredulous eyes, perhaps, even fearing for her sanity. With a blush which did all but give her boys a heart attack. _'She never blushes anymore!'_ Edward thought in wonderment. "Riley managed a sentence in proper English and without cussing like he was dragged up and not brought up."

"Thanks bunches for all of the faith, Mum." Riley lightly poked her ankle, successfully nicking his finger on a sharp edge of her coral anklet, "Fuck!"

"Riley Anthony Masen!" He barely had time to register his full name and link it to 'trouble' before his head flew forward under the force of her clout. "you do not under any circumstances use that atrocious word in my presence ever again or so help me God I will rip you a new pair!" With a groan, Riley cupped his crotch, already feeling a dull throbbing pain that was not anywhere near pleasant in his nether regions.

"Mum!" he moaned, looking pleadingly at her and reminding Edward of his father's pout in the hospital last week. He found it kind of fun to watch them interact on a regular parent-child basis instead of the usual animosity that flowed between them.

"Don't you 'mum' me!" she sounded near hysterics if Edward was being honest to himself and he couldn't help but snicker.

"What are you laughing at, retard?" Riley spat in his direction carelessly, his glare hard and murderous. Edward hiccupped a sob at the sudden change in his polarity and Elizabeth gasped, horrified. Slowly, Riley came to realize what he had said, his eyes growing large and frightened. Clumsily, he rose, stuttering, "I-I-I'm so-I'm so-Edward…" He backed away cautiously, still seeming terribly frightened before their astonished gazes. "I-I…" With a sharp yelp, he fled from the room, the sound of him knocking into tings on his way out of the house echoing. Silently, Elizabeth moved over to rub the crick out of Edward's neck, telling him about his father's business trip.

"What did I say? What did I say?" Riley chanted over and over again to himself angrily. It hadn't been much and he knew he was over-reacting but he was still panicked. It had been harsh and cruel to say something like that to Edward after being so good to him but it still seemed like nothing compared to what he had done the last time Edward had laughed at him. Riley shuddered visibly at the thought, his mind locked on the image of Edward's fresh blood and the little boy huddled in a pool of excrement. "What did I say? What did I say?" His stomach churned a bit and he vomited to the sounds of Edward coughing in his ear. He didn't go home.

_Three days later…_

"Where is he?" Edward Sr., helplessly, watched his wife wear the tiles with her angry and exasperated pacing. He had news on Riley's whereabouts but she hadn't given him a chance to say anything, going on and on about various punishments for making her worry about him. He took the chance of ignoring her to pull out his phone and scroll through his messages. _'ah, there it is…'_

_**Dad, im ok. Stayin gavin's 4 a cupl days. Tell Edward n mum im srry. I wasn't thinking. N da I luv em. Bye.**_

"How could he do such a thing!" Elizabeth shrieked, coming to a mad stop in front of her terribly exhausted and potentially confused by her reaction. She watched him expectantly, as if expecting an answer for their son's sudden bout of 'stupidity' - as she called it so lovingly. Wordlessly he passed the phone over to her and lay his head down on the counter, the cool marble healing the fever heat he felt on his gaunter cheek; Chicago for two days had been brutal with all of the running around. He placed a weary hand over his hair at the crown of his head, filtering the thinner strands through his fingers. He needed rest and good food.

"How long?"

"Hmm?" He lifted his head to peek at her from between fallen locks. He needed a haircut, as well.

"The text." She was awfully quiet, something he had come to relate with hard thinking.

"I got it when I landed earlier but it was sent the day I arrived. The last day you saw him, right?" he mumbled into his sleeve, his eyes already drooping, "What time is it?"

"It's six," she replied, holding his hand in his hair, "I have to go wake Edward up for school soon. You should go get some sleep."

"I probably should," he echoed, shallowly. His snuggled deeper into the harder countertop as she scratched his scalp, "Are you going to get him this morning?"

Elizabeth chuckled and he swore it to be gold. "Yes, I mss him and yes, he is grounded."

"He won't complain." Edward Sr.'s voice slurred drunkenly in his haze.

"I guessed as much," his wife sighed, her face possibly a frown but he couldn't see through his lids.

"Don't tell him I ratted him out."

She could do nothing but laugh at him as she trotted away to wake her kids. She couldn't help but feel tense after leaving Caroline's and Elizabeth's rooms to wake Edward. He hadn't been in school for a while and he was surely behind even with the things his teachers emailed her but she was mostly worried about how the other children would treat him. He had been bullied, that much was obvious, though never physically - mostly taunting and jeering. There hadn't been much that she could've done about it, the principal and teachers always blowing it off as 'the antics of little children'. They were thirteen. They should have enough sense by now. The door squeaked open and she saw her son sprawled out across his bed in the wrong direction, mind you, his good leg dangling off the edge and the other curled up protectively just enough to stay on the sheets. And he snored! Elizabeth couldn't stifle her giggles.

"Fibblegasbit!" He shouted out suddenly, sitting straight up like a post before flopping back limply. She full out laughed and not just politely. Elizabeth belly-laughed like she hadn't since she was young, tears budding in her eyes and her stomach aching with the effort. That woke Edward up for sure, albeit slower and groggier than his previous stint. Her daughters grumbled past her, disputing who got the bathroom first. Her son watched her strangely, waiting for her to return to normal. It was strange for him. He had never seen his mother laugh so freely and loudly before but when she snorted, he jumped and giggled a bit himself.

Taking deep breaths (and after a couple tries) she regained enough composure to tell him that he had to go back to school today. _'school? Oh man…'_ He made a face that was typical of all young adolescents when school was mentioned as it usually went, Elizabeth scolded, "Don't you give me that face, mister. Now hobble into that bathroom and get clean. Be sure to use the rails. He made another face. Edward hated those stupid rails. When his hands got soapy they slipped straight along it. What was the point of safety rails if they turned out to be a safety hazard? But after being admonished, he got up, grabbed a crutch and did as he was told. Edward showed carefully, not wanting to all and hurt himself but half-wishing something would happen so he wouldn't have to go in.

After his shower he took his sweet time getting dressed to the cacophony of his mother making breakfast and separating his sisters. He was belting his pants when he heard a large thump on the roof next to his window followed by quiet cursing. There was frantic scrabbling and a large palm slapped itself down on the window pane. Frozen by terror, Edward slowly backed up, hopping on his good leg until he hit the bed and tumbled down onto the linen. His heart rate sped up along with his breathing and he fumble to get a grasp on his crutch. When Riley's face appeared, however, instead of some crazed murder, Edward breathed a large sigh of relief before glaring, acidic, at his foolish brother. Shaking his head, disgruntled, Riley pushed up the window and pulled himself through it.

"What's a happenin', captain?" Riley said, breathlessly, grinning. He 'oof'-ed when a pair of balled up socks hit his face. "Ok, not in da best o' moods this morning'."

'_and I should be when my creep of a brother breaks into my room?'_

Edward resumed getting dressed, pulling on a long sleeved jersey before wrestling himself into a polo. He fixed his shoes, stuffing the cushion pads around his messed up one. Grabbing his crutches, he made it about two steps before Riley tackled him. They both staggered but Riley held him tight, apologizing profusely for -and Edward blushed a bit a the thought of what his mother would do to him if he ever said those words- 'being a self-righteous fucktard who thinks more with his cock tan his brain'. _'Yes, Mummy would kill me'._ Awkwardly, he pat his elder brother's back but held onto him as fiercely as he could with his other hand.

"Ever realize that this family got way too much drama to be real?" Riley laughed wryly, earning a similar smile from Edward, "We go through so much shit and it all happens so fuckin' fast. No wonder we got whiplash." He shook his head, thumping Edward's back. He didn't buckle as much as he would have. "Ah, nice," Riley appraised, noticing it, "How much do you weigh now?" Edward signed one-hundred-and-fourteen. "How much have you been eating?" Riley was disbelieving. He had never seen Edward gain so much weight in less than a couple months. _'way more than you could ever imagine'_ Edward grimace slightly at all the food he had consumed but shrugged Riley off. "Alright, fatty get to school. Don't tell mum I'm home or I'll give you a guilt-free wedgie." Nodding furiously, Edward grabbed his *Anarchy messenger bag. It was the coolest part about going to school: his cool beyond cool and awesome bag. His aunt had sent it for Riley but Riley had been going through a 'I'm a man so I don't wear anything with patterns on it' phase. It had been a grace period for Edward. The both of them exited the room together but Riley deviated down the hallway towards his room.

By the time Edward reached the base of the staircase, his sisters had already left for school and his mother was running around like crazy, looking for something. She noticed him after about another few minutes of playing Godzilla and yanked him into the kitchen before promptly throwing down a large breakfast platter in front of him. "Eat." It sure was good entertaining to watch his mother bustle around, putting things together and in that moment, he didn't quite mind having a dysfunctional family if it could've been that much fun.

It was almost half-seven when they left, Edward praying vigorously for the car to run out of gas or even for a second Ice Age, just so he wouldn't have to face those cruel children in Junior High but all too soon they pulled up in front of the ugly grey buildings. There was children everywhere and it only reinforced Edward's loathing fear of the place. Everything stopped when he got out; hopscotch, fighting, jump rope, gossiping, laughing, crying. Everyone stopped and watched him make his way up the walk with small beady eyes holding turpitude. They wanted him. Sweat broke out across his brow under his mane. They wanted him. His arms and legs visibly trembled and it was no fault of weak limbs. They wanted him. His stomach started to clench upsettingly. They wanted him and they had him at their mercy. They were going to maim him for being away for so long. Slowly, after his mother had driven away to his feeble wave, sound began picking up and motion started but it wasn't as before. They were buzzing and staring and plotting. He inched to the door but with each shuffle, they neared him in a great mob. This was promising to be brutal.

Just then, when he thought they were near enough to pounce, the double doors flew inward and out stepped a small but angered figure. She glared at the collective bunch from beneath her tattered baseball cap, pushing up the sleeves of her dress shirt which happened to be male and ten times too large. She adjusted the almost broken belt at her waist before stomping her little safety boots. "Bella?" Edward gasped, partially relieved and mostly surprised.

"Don't you dare mess with him!" she hollered to the seething group who began retreating away from them. She stood, fearless in her makeshift dress, arms and legs spread to block Edward, not even minding that her stood almost a foot above her. He rested a grateful hand on her shoulder and led her, still glaring at them, inside to their home room. Once the door was closed, they surveyed the room. The others present eyes them wearily and Edward wondered if all Junior High Schools were this much of a war zone. Then the strangest of all strange things ever happened; Bella launched herself at him, grabbing him up in a huge hug. He felt her warm palms on the back of his neck and thought of how nice it felt, almost like the way his mother hugged him but still nice. Edward leaned into her and held her oddly to him with a crutch. "Oh my gosh, Edward! It's so nice to have you back!" she gushed then proceeded to tell him 'everything that he missed' and she meant _everything_, down to what people brought for lunch. Funnily enough, Edward laughed with her and at her extravagant gestures.

Funnily enough, he wasn't a lone soldier anymore and Riley was twice as right. Things did happen fast. His stomach hurt from the whiplash or that could just be his laughter.

**AN:- so sorry. But here it is and…**

***Anarchy messenger bag:- I saw this bag in the mall, even though it's a knock off cuz it's cheap and loved it so I thought I'd give it to Edward. Exams are done. I'll update weekly. =)**


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